andyscotland

Bear in mind that once they get planning, they have planning, and can build regardless of whether they honour your agreement. A legally binding agreement is only useful if you trust them to honour it, or have the means and determination to force them to through the courts if they decide not to. And even then only if the developer doesn't disappear/go bust first - are they a big established firm? So I'd think carefully about what you want here. If you're actually OK with the development but this is a nice opportunity to extract some benefit while you can, then perhaps accept the risk it might not happen. In that case not worth spending money/time on solicitors. Just get the developers to document the offer - including dates - in plain English on their company paper and get it signed. That's still "legally binding". If it's more important to you, then you need a contract where the penalties for them not complying are definitely big enough to make it worth suing. Otherwise if it's just an agreement to do a few £k of work for £1k, you may later find it's not worth the legal fees & risk to try to force them to deliver. For that I think you do need input from a solicitor working for you, not them, although you should ask the developer to cover the cost (ideally upfront).

I think there's a bit of headroom. As Octopus explain it, on Tracker & Agile essentially the customer is taking the risk - but that cuts out both the risk & importantly cost of hedging that the supplier (and their middlemen) would otherwise have to do to give you a nice stable price all year round. If you need the certainty of knowing what your bills will be day to day and month to month, a chunk of the "electricity" you're paying for is actually risk premiums, interest & reimbursing brokers for the hedges they made a loss on - and as I understand it a good chunk of that will be external to Octopus. So I guess like most things financial, if you're fortunate enough to be in a position to gamble a bit with cashflow you can probably make savings over the longer term without hitting Octopus' margins and everyone's happy...

It would definitely be worth comparing Octopus Agile in that case. When I looked at the end of last year, Tracker's daily price seemed to work out a bit cheaper than the average (mean) of all the half-hourly prices on Agile for that day. But I think Tracker is essentially using a weighted average based on when people generally use power, where Agile is using the raw wholesale price (simplifying a bit). If you can control time of use, particularly if you can avoid the ~ 4pm - 7pm surge then I worked out you could do better on Agile's half-hour pricing. Don't have the analysis I did to hand just now, but for example looking at today's Agile prices for Southern Scotland, overnight is around 14-15p, rising to 20ish for most of the day & evening, with a couple of hours around 38/39p at teatime. And overnight prices this week seem quite high, before Christmas we had several days where overnight was dropping to a couple of pence a unit or even in some cases a negative price. So if you're able to control water heating etc to use the optimum time window each day I think you'd easily beat your current 16/34 E7 both at night and for almost all of the day. Will try and dig out the more detailed data I did in December when I'm back at PC.

I don't know if that's a huge issue, it seems fairly easy to set up an HMRC login these days (and some people will already have one). I don't have any special info but it wouldn't surprise me if they take the same approach as for Charity Gift Aid claims - upload a spreadsheet with known column headings and data formats (or download a template from them and fill it in). It's hugely cheaper to build a system to parse and validate the content of a spreadsheet than to build one that can support line by line data entry and the likelihood of people needing to do it in more than one session - unless there's a need for variable/complex types of fields on each individual item. This is a huge bugbear of mine (as a software developer). None of the cloud accounting packages are anywhere near as fast to use for bulk data entry as the older desktop packages. They have other advantages, of course, but for "power users" they can be painfully slow to use!

I'd definitely suggest numbering every document as I assume they will still want a detailed schedule of the individual items you're claiming. However from the sounds of the announcement so far it might be numbering every document & putting them in a lever arch file in case they ask for them later, rather than having to scan them all. Which would be good. I wonder if they've done a cost-benefit analysis of how much time they spend checking all the individual invoices Vs how much they save in amounts they reject from the claim, and decided it's cheaper to take it on trust with a bit of audit/targeted inspection as for normal business VAT claims.

Just seen this highlighted on a tax & finance email I get, and couldn't see it mentioned here yet https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/vat-diy-housebuilders-scheme-digitisation-of-claims-and-extending-time-limit/vat-digitisation-of-claims-and-extending-time-limit-for-diy-housebuilders-scheme From 5th Dec 2023 apparently: * The time limit (I think for all claims) will be 6 months from completion, not 3 * There'll be the option to claim online (which presumably will also let you see status etc) * They will apparently no longer require all the invoices at the time of submitting the claim. I assume that will put things on a similar footing to businesses, where they might inspect some claims/ask for a random sample of evidence, and potentially impose penalties etc if they discover you've claimed something you shouldn't have - they don't spell out exactly how that will work. So would still be important to make sure you have & have checked all the invoices, but no longer the need/risk to post off all the originals to HMRC and hope they arrive...

That would turn it into a hybrid roof, which can be risky. You would need to do a u-value calculation & condensation risk analysis to make sure that the joists & OSB stay warm enough to avoid any condensation within them. A small bit of extra insulation may be ok, but I'd want to be confident I had a good undamaged VCL below the joists was not punctured. If you were doing that and therefore adding a VCL below joists, I'd go with your idea B but you probably don't need to fuss about taking it up the joists a bit and the extra staple holes that will create. Just let it drape down when fixing so you have enough slack to push it upwards to sit on services/downlights where needed. Assuming you pre-cut downlight holes before the plasterboards go up and use LEDs / a cap to prevent heat damage to the membrane. If you go that route, just take services up and down the joist gaps and go across at the top of the wall if needed, to avoid having to notch anything.

@TerryE be interested to hear how you get on if you do explore it. ASHP is on my list for the future (just living in hope our existing gas back boiler will survive till the current projects on my list are complete & my wife has recovered enough to let me start a new one 🤣)

Interesting that the listing mentions that their partner Unitherm Heating Systems can provide MCS certification for grants etc. Looking at Unitherm's site it looks like that's a remote design & paperwork service based on you supplying photos of the install etc. No mention of the fee, or to what extent/how they require the person doing the work to demonstrate competence. But potentially with a friendly spark/plumber might provide a route to getting grants without being tied to having the whole thing done by an MCS installer...

First off the broad principle that would apply to all situations like this. The key question to be clear on (and ideally document) is have you agreed a total price, or a price + VAT (which he may happen to be charging at 0% at the moment). If you have a quote/contract/verbal agreement on an "ex VAT" price then just because he invoices an amount now he could theoretically come back at a later date with e.g. a VAT-only invoice. It's no different to any other situation where a supplier might accidentally invoice for less than agreed and still be entitled to come back and ask for the balance when they discover the mistake. There are some exceptions and caveats and time periods vary by UK country but loosely speaking suppliers have several years in which they could still successfully pursue an underpayment / billing mistake. On the other hand if you've agreed a total price then any missing VAT would be down to him. Same as e.g. if you buy Jaffa cakes in the shop and pay the amount they asked at the time, they can't later chase you up for the extra if they realise they should have charged them at 20%. In this specific case though I think you're fine. All labour on new builds is zero rated, except for a few very specific services (architect / structural engineer etc) that are standard rated. This is for both labour-only and supply-and-fit. Equipment hire is 20% rated, but he's not hiring you the crusher. He is bringing the crusher as part of his supply of labour & services. This is the same as the common case of a groundwork company coming with a digger to dig foundation trenches - they are bringing their own plant and providing essentially a labour-only service, which would be zero rated.

Had a look and unfortunately I don't have any photos, might be able to do a quick sketch tomorrow

Electrical Safety First publish a set of official Best Practice Guides in partnership with the IET, the main certification schemes (NICEIC etc) and others. Best Practice Guide 4 covers periodic inspection https://www.electricalsafetyfirst.org.uk/media/fpton1au/bpg4-a5-2022.pdf That specifies a C3 - Improvement Recommended (which means it is not an immediate or potential danger but the installation would be safer if addressed) as @ProDave says for: > Presence of a consumer unit or similar switchgear made from combustible material (e.g. plastic) that is not inside a non-combustible enclosure and which is located under a wooden staircase or within a sole route of escape from the premise. If you only have C3s then the overall report is satisfactory. But note that they also say if it is not in a sole escape route or under a wooden staircase then it shouldn't even be C3, it's not compliant with current BS7671 but does not need to be recorded on the report. Obviously if there are loose connections inside or evidence of arcing/overheating then that would need to be addressed. The absence of RCD protection on the lighting circuits is listed in BPG4 as a C3. However the unsheathed cables @TonyT spotted would be a C2 Potential Danger as they are accessible to touch so that would give you an "Unsatisfactory" report until addressed.

Just to be clear, you're asking about ventilation behind the vertical cladding, not about roof ventilation (which I think a couple of the answers have assumed)? The cladding ventilation gap is not really related to the indoor humidity of the space (the SIPS themselves will provide a fairly effective moisture barrier between inside & out, though I also lined mine with a vapour barrier behind the internal lining for belt & braces). It is solely to provide airflow across the back of the cladding boards so they can dry from both sides when they get wet. You don't need a huge amount of airflow - the manufacturer's drawings may well show just having the cavity open at the bottom. I wasn't happy with that, so I just drilled some holes in the top of the cladding just below where the EPDM laps over but above the line of the bottom of the fascia. Then covered with insect mesh, some thin packers, and the fascia. The top ventilation is completely invisible now it's all finished, and even a thin gap at the top should be enough to let natural convection draw the air gently out past the fascia.

Glad you're sorted, those prices don't look too awful, considering. It does seem mad it's so hard when the subsidence was rectified and so long ago, unfortunately probably another casualty of the tickbox "computer says no" approach to focusing on the easy customers and avoiding anything requiring a bit of thought...

I guess the issue is most policies would cover the contents for damage due to subsidence (either the building / a section of wall collapsing on them or e.g. if movement caused a pipe to crack and flood, or an electrical supply or gas line to be damaged and start a fire. Although potentially low probability (depending on the scale/nature of the subsidence) that could be a much more expensive claim than e.g. theft as it could involve total loss of your contents. So presumably off-the-shelf insurers aren't willing to get into trying to assess how likely that is for your specific property. It might be worth going through a broker to either find an insurer that is willing to price the risk or a policy that excludes subsidence-related claims.

Wouldn't say I'm worried, just worth being aware of the status. My understanding is the majority of the automatic rules around fitness for purpose (especially over time), faulty products, minimum warranty period etc are only enforceable for consumer contracts. For business to business the assumption is the customer has the knowledge to agree a contract they're happy with and the ability to sue for breach of contract if required. There's much less option to get e.g. trading standards or similar in to enforce anything as a statutory right. As I said, in practical terms with a reputable retailer I'd imagine it would make no difference especially in clear-cut disputes. Not least as a lot of retailers have discretionary returns/warranty policies that go beyond statutory minimum anyway. So I wouldn't expect it to be an issue with Howdens but in more general terms would just keep in the back of my mind that one reason trade prices are lower is that the supplier is carrying less liability. And that it is more important to read the actual T&C's of any quote/contract. Probably wouldn't matter to me, but might to some people.

Just be aware that technically speaking business-to-business contracts don't have the same legal protections as business-to-consumer. I'm not certain how the Consumer Rights Act would handle a situation if you actually are a consumer but had told the supplier you were a trader. But I suspect they could at least try to argue you should only have b2b rights. Obviously you'd hope a well-known brand would be keen to resolve things through goodwill anyway, so it may not have any practical impact. But just be aware.

That is a very fair point and I've not got to that stage yet so I might change my mind again! 🤣 There must be some standards, but they must be quite loose based on some of the loads I've had! Although yes more recently stuff has been better (from the merchant, the DIY stores near us are still doing a pretty good line in bananas). But I did just get a load of 25mm battens that were 22mm if you measured them generously and some of them varied in thickness along the length... 🙄

I'd have said the same in the past but having just built my first metal framed wall I think I'd go the other way. Easy enough to cut with a pair of tin snips, which are cheap & easy to buy. And because they slot into the channel and don't have to be perfectly flush if you do cut it a few mm short it's not a problem whereas wood really needs to be a perfect tight fit. Saved me a lot of time on this one as it's meeting a sloping ceiling. So if you're likely to make (small) mistakes measuring, metal is more forgiving. Not to mention I've found as a DIY builder it can take more effort/stern conversations with merchants to get hold of straight timber and if you don't have joinery experience can be harder to know what's acceptable/how to pull things back into line, which can be completely avoided with metal.

Unless it's changed fairly recently I don't think that's quite correct. There is an option to use an Approved Certifier of Design for the structure (your structural engineer) and/or for energy/insulation. In theory it's optional, you get a discount on the warrant fee for each Approved Certifier you use, in practice I've heard building control are reluctant to sign off structural engineer's calcs if they aren't an Approved Certifier. I did my whole application other than the structural engineering, and put that in with the engineer's drawings and certificate, and BC were happy with that.

I did my own for my extension - but I already had quite a bit of experience of producing technical drawings, interpreting regulations/technical standards and documenting compliance (e.g. for licensing applications for temporary venues) from my previous life working in theatre and events. It took a huge amount of time. Partly that's actually just doing the drawing, especially because unlike a pro I didn't have any library of symbols/templates/past drawings to adapt and reuse so had to draw everything from scratch. But the bigger part was working out what to draw: * Researching examples of other people's plans to see what Building Control would expect to see detailed and how it would usually be presented - if drawings stand out as being done by an amateur that may attract more attention and questions over the details * Researching the actual building regs to understand what I was actually allowed to build, how it had to be constructed, all the limits on sizes, positioning of things, layout of drainage, minimum numbers of sockets, smoke alarms, u-values and lots more. A lot of this information has to be shown on the drawings to show BC that it's been considered and the design complies. So unless you know all the rules, it's not possible to produce a drawing that shows you meet them. I found it an interesting and rewarding challenge, and my first set of plans came back with one very minor comment to amend before BC approved them, which was better than my mother-in-law's architect managed! And as I'm also building myself, the process was very useful in then knowing exactly what I was doing once I started construction. But it is not easy, and unless you would enjoy investing a lot of time learning a new skill then it would probably make sense to pay someone - the prices you've had seem about right from what I've heard.

That would be fine.

Broadly speaking, if cable is clipped direct on the surface it can go anywhere you like. SWA is rated for UV light so can be used externally without any problems.

It's a long time since I trained and we didn't really cover use of split concentric in any depth other than as a supply incomer. I would be pretty sure that it wouldn't have sufficient mechanical protection to avoid the need for an RCD at the origin, which you really want to avoid on a sub-main. The requirements that DNOs work to are different to those for consumer installations.

In theory I would say yes roughly. The isolator in the meter box needs to be fused. The sub-main cables will almost certainly need to be armoured to avoid the need for RCD protection. You can't use Henley blocks on their own as you can't have cable cores exposed outside an enclosure - they're only ok on the surface with meter tails because those are insulated and sheathed so have mechanical protection. So you'd need to put them in a metal enclosure (which will also allow you to terminate the armour properly) or use an enclosure with DIN rail terminal block rather than Henley which will achieve the same. You could connect that enclosure to the consumer unit with a short length of metal conduit to keep it neat and avoid an extra pair of SWA terminations for the link cable. One thing to watch (especially if extending back to the old CU) will be voltage drop. If you have the full house load on that cable you may need to up-rate it to avoid getting too much of your overall voltage drop allowance before you get to the old CU. It will depend on the design current, cable sizing and length of your existing circuits. The calculations for that can get complex once you start up-sizing cables. Definitely worth running it all by your sparky before committing as ultimately they'll need to sign it off. I'd also keep your own records of cable sizing calculations, photos of the install etc in case time passes and you find yourself working with a different spark down the line.